Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus glycoproteins B and K8.1 regulate virion egress and synthesis of vascular endothelial growth factor and viral interleukin-6 in BCBL-1 cells.
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesviral IL-6 and human IL-6 open reading frames contain miRNA binding sites and are subject to cellular miRNA regulation.
Abnormal expression of the IL-6 gene has been suggested to be involved in the pathogenesis of a variety of diseases, especially rheumatoid arthritis, Castleman's disease, mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis, multiple myeloma and Kaposi's sarcoma.
Among downstream genes, two specific metalloproteases, ADAMTS1 and 9, are strongly expressed in AIDS-KS tissues and contribute to KSHV-infected endothelial cell invasiveness through up-regulation of IL-6 and VEGF.
By immunostaining, mesothelioma cells expressed interleukin-6 and platelet-derived growth factor, which are important for survival of Kaposi's sarcoma cells.
Colocalization of the viral interleukin-6 with latent nuclear antigen-1 of human herpesvirus-8 in endothelial spindle cells of Kaposi's sarcoma and lymphoid cells of multicentric Castleman's disease.
Expression of the viral interleukin-6 homolog from Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus is also sufficient to induce significant D6 upregulation both in vitro and in vivo, and Kaposi sarcoma and primary effusion lymphoma cells demonstrate high levels of D6 expression.
Four virus proteins similar to two human macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP) chemokines, interleukin-6 (IL-6), and interferon regulatory factor (IRF) are encoded by the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) genome. vIL-6 was functional in B9 proliferation assays and primarily expressed in KSHV-infected hematopoietic cells rather than KS lesions.
Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) interleukin-6 (vIL-6) promotes cell proliferation and survival and is proangiogenic, implicating it as a contributor to virus-associated Kaposi's sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), and multicentric Castleman's disease.
In addition to the HHV-8 infection, the interleukin-6 promoter polymorphism G-174C is associated with a risk of development of KS in renal transplant recipients.